To think that a man standing outside a school in girls uniform is not OK?

[crinklemum2]

Name changed as this is very local and he was seen wearing my DD's school uniform.

A local school uniform shop shared images to reassure parents they would not be selling him any items. Essex police say he poses no risk and people should stop sharing the photos. He looks to be late 50s/early 60s.

He's been seen around schools - both primary and secondary - dressed as a school girl (in their uniform). I am fucking outraged that the police don't seem to think that's an issue. God forbid we offend men or shame their fetishes.

AIBU that this must be an antisocial behaviour at the very least?

Even creepy and perverse but it sounds more like some silly old man with mental issues

Yes, silly old man…let’s indulge his frankly disturbing behaviour of hanging around outside schools in uniform taking photos of the children! It’s only a bit of fun after all and I’m sure he’s completely harmless.

No matter that he is frightening children and women with his actions and people don’t feel safe letting their kids walk to and from school knowing this “character” is hanging around making a nuisance of himself - he’s just a silly man - he can do what he likes -

JUST SHUT UP YOU HYSTERICAL WOMEN!!!

People did do more behind close doors back then. As there was no justifying such disgusting behaviour.
They can do it more openly now, if a man wants to perv on women in changing rooms he can put a dress on and take a pair of jeans in there and just crack on, same with toilets, convicted paedophile wants access to kids? change gender and name, there you go clean DBS check to work in a school. The biggest wrongens in society don’t need to do it in secret anymore, they’ve found their very own loophole system.
Plus we’ve got a police force setting the example, instead of raising serious concerns about the beasts they work with they just give them nicknames.

Even creepy and perverse but it sounds more like some silly old man with mental issues

Because silly old men with mental health issues can't sexually harass and assault anyone 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

How naive can you be??!

I really don’t think it matters whether this man has mental health problems or not, it has no bearing on whether he is a risk or not. It does have a bearing on how the police deal with it, they would liaise with the mental health services. But I can’t imagine any response other than ‘you need to keep away from schools and young children’. Because that man does, whether he’s aware or not, whatever his thinking is and whatever his mental state is.

In fact, if he did have mental health or other needs, it’s quite important for him that he is helped by the adults, the professionals like the police and support services, to learn that it is not OK to be what is really a kind of stalking of younger children. That is not to say people get vigilante and threaten, or say there is evil intent, we have no way of knowing. What we do know is that crossing boundaries is not good for anyone, and getting obsessed and fixated by an adult about younger children is also not healthy for the adult particularly if they are in a precarious mental state. He should be helped and diverted.

And children, schools and families should never be told someone is ‘harmless’ if they are breaking down safeguarding barriers by hanging around and small children being fixated on. That is not a harmless activity.

I just prefer to withhold judgement and still have faith there are good police out there and they’d have looked up criminal records and talked to some medical professional as well by now. I do hope they will be getting this man off to a secure psychiatric unit soon anyway.

I don’t see the need for panic or for being so sure he is a pervert. He’s in plain sight, the children can avoid him. They know to steer clear. The ones I know of who are intent on harming a child, would not be so obviously bizarre and frightening. They’d be friendly and try and tempt you with sweets or a pony or a puppy. They’d blend in so no one would notice you going off with them. Or dress like police or other type of person we tell children to trust. It just doesn’t add up to the actions of a predator, it’s so stupid it’s mad. So that’s why I’m leaning towards mad.

The children can avoid him, on their bus home from school that he follows them onto. 🙄

They know to steer clear. The ones I know of who are intent on harming a child, would not be so obviously bizarre and frightening. They’d be friendly and try and tempt you with sweets or a pony or a puppy

Explain Jimmy Saville then.

'Because it literally is. How many times have people been murdered and it been blamed on mental health issues.'

TBH I do think you need to be mentally ill to take another life, outside of a warzone or self-defence.

Why should young children coming out of school have to avoid / steer clear of the strange man hanging around.

If you say to a young child that they must not look or don't go near an old man dressed as a child lurking outside their school it is going to frighten them and will stay with them.

Why on earth is this man's feelings more important than theirs. The police should tell him to move. It is so ridiculous how things are these days.

What about the children's mental health?

@Onnabugeisha thing is we have no way of knowing. But I do think it’s still unhealthy for an adult to fixate on younger children around schools, and appropriate, sensitive but firm action should be taken to help that individual to stop doing it. Always better to nip this in the bud rather than wait. If he isn’t mentally well, he could end up chatting to a young kid and end up arrested which would be even worse for him, even if we are thinking of his general future and wellbeing.

If he is matching school uniforms to each place he visits then that smacks of been dodgy. And any one would realise that would upset people and children. I would not be happy with him hanging around. And the thing that perverts don't wear women's gear. It smacks of a new way to try and pretend to be trans to get round ppl asking questions. Or a unstable person.

He pretty much did what I said, except he was a DJ and celebrity and abused the trust of fans to get them alone. Like the 10yr old boy he tempted with a special autograph. No one denies he was friendly and had bags of charm. He also didn’t dress bizarrely, but fashionably because eccentric fashion was in then.

Kids should not have the responsibility placed on them for some pervert man.
Why can’t they just come to and from school with their friends, being carefree, as kids should be. It’s a fucking joke he’s been allowed to do this.

He was obviously bizarre and abused children in plain sight. Try again.

He always looked deranged to me.

Actually a head injury could cause such a condition.

Oh, purleeeease 🤣

Why are people so eager to assume he is a “pervert” getting “sexual arousal” when the police have already checked him out for that and said that he isn’t any such type of person? Are we wrong for thinking about the other possibilities since the police have ruled out the one you think it is?

How do you think the conversation to ensure this man isn’t posing a threat went? I’m imagining it was something like:

Police officer: “excuse me (insert pronoun) but what are you doing hanging around outside this school dressed in it’s uniform taking photos of children?”

Pervy man: “I’m just getting some fresh air, not harming anyone am I? It’s a free country, I can wear what I like and the photos are just for my own personal use - no crime in that!”

police officer: “Ok then, on you go”

”Parents! This person is completely harmless - nothing to see here - go about your business”

I really doubt they have looked any deeper into this individuals possible motives.

They can’t have any clue whether he presents a threat or not.

Let’s hope for those kids sake he doesn’t take his disturbing behaviour any further. In the meantime they will just have to put up with it, like women and children have always had to quash their own feelings of unease around pervy, inappropriate behaviour from men.

It’s not about his feelings at all. It’s the fact that seriously mentally ill people often don’t know what they are doing, you can warn them away..but it wont register. I think that he should be sectioned, but unfortunately recent changes to the mental health act have made it much harder to section someone who isn’t actively suicidal or threatening.

So did Dr Who though..

Well then you're a more forgiving?trusting? Person than me I'll give you that.

I've stuck to assume the worse, hope for the best since my childhood, you obviously chose a different path.

Also mines criminal past had disappeared into a paperwork black hole until I put him back in the police radar, and don't forget all the ones that just haven't been caught, yet.

Also, mine had been in a mental secure hospital, before living at mine, so mad and bad.

I just worry that sometimes you are too trusting that inherently people are good. Because a lot are the very opposite to good.

Jimmy Saville literally groped kids on TV.
And as for the charming, getting close behaviour. How do you know this isn’t what this man’s trying to do? Lurking outside schools in uniform getting familiar with the kids there, to eventually befriend them and then carry on his sick fantasies. It’s disgusting we have to think like this but the risk is burning red in my opinion

No,it wouldn’t make a difference if he were younger and no it wouldnt make a difference if he was wearing teen clothes.He is a man loitering around a school and travelling on a school bus.Even if he were dressed in a boiler suit and wearing work boots,his behaviour would still be a concern for childrens safety.Do you get it now🤦‍♀️

Don't you understand about what porn sickness does to their brains? Hypersexual behaviours may also be a feature of some forms of dementia. Non of this means that children shouldn't be safeguarded. Also see www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/a-40yearold-developed-an-obsession-with-child-pornography-then-doctors-discovered-why-a6893756.html

No matter the reason its our duty as a society to safeguard our children.

No, that’s not really the case. Believe it or not, but in the 60/70s it wasn’t socially accepted behaviour to “abuse children in plain sight”. He hid it well. Many people who knew him were fooled.

Has any one tried to pass the time of day with him? to maybe understand his life. Has he got family in the area that could explain why he is like that?

His family have been active in raising concerns about him and his behaviour!